This is what I keep in mind when tagging:
1. Search Engines: I think everyone who's reading this knows how effective search engines work and the importance of correct key wording both by users and web-authors.
2. Encouraging contributors. Obviously it's nice when someone cares enough to add a tag to your diary etc. It's also an effective way to suggest things or to show that you actually followed some of the links in the diary.
3. Urgent, Top Priority, community-coined words etc: It's a way to efficiently and independently hold Daily Kos together. Let's be honest, we've all had our differences in the past. I think at one point I posted something about Clark being responsible for Waco...then linked to the
Weekly Standard World Net Daily: boy did I lose my "preferred user" status quick, lol. But anyways, we've been here from the beginning. We don't need to see whether a post was written by Armando or Kos: we can tell just by reading it. We know Kos isn't some paid Republican Operative or some other bullshit started by some 3-day redstate "member."
There should be little reason to purposefully create community-coined terms: enough will be made through common mistakes. Don't be afraid to tag the front page, but keep in mind only that user and
Kos trusted users can edit what tags you've added.
4. Now to the tagging itself: so when creating tags it's best to keep in mind that they're most effective in being linked to by other people in a way that allows you to follow a specific subject. For example, tagging all things to do with Halliburton/Iraq/Abramof/Katrina/Dick Cheney under the tag 'Contracts' allows us to link like so:
Contracts: It's a great way for those of us who know how to use Daily Kos to get reliable information in a timely manner.